A trip report , also known as a psychedelic experience report , is a written account of a subjective psychedelic experience by a person who has taken a psychedelic or other hallucinogenic drug .[ 1] [ 2] [ 3] They are often published on online websites like Erowid , Bluelight , Lycaeum, Drugs Forum, and Reddit , among others, with Erowid's Experience Vaults containing thousands of trip reports.[ 2] [ 3] [ 4] [ 5] [ 6]
Among the most famous trip reports are those of chemist Albert Hofmann when he discovered LSD , including Bicycle Day (April 19, 1943) and his initial accidental lower-dose exposure a few days earlier on April 16, 1943.[ 7] [ 8] [ 9] Writer Aldous Huxley 's The Doors of Perception (1954) is a book-length trip report about his first experience with mescaline provided by psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond .[ 3] Chemist Alexander Shulgin 's books PiHKAL (1991)[ 10] and TiHKAL (1997)[ 11] contain short trip reports for hundreds of psychedelic drugs.[ 12] [ 13]
In the 2020s, researchers have started to analyze trip reports as part of scientific research into the effects of psychedelics.[ 2] [ 5] [ 14] [ 15] As an example, the pharmaceutical company Mindstate Design Labs processed 70,000 online trip reports with artificial intelligence (AI) and selected 5-MeO-MiPT as a candidate with unique subjective effects for development as a potential pharmaceutical medication .[ 16] [ 17] [ 15]
^ Bååth, Jonas; Nordgren, Johan (27 October 2022). "Trip Reports". Routledge Handbook of Intoxicants and Intoxication . London: Routledge. pp. 328– 341. doi :10.4324/9780429058141-26 . ISBN 978-0-429-05814-1 . Retrieved 26 April 2025 .
^ a b c Miceli McMillan, Riccardo; Reynolds, Jack; Fernandez, Anthony (25 November 2024). "The phenomenology of psychedelic temporality: current knowledge, open questions, and clinical applications" . Philosophical Psychology : 1– 28. doi :10.1080/09515089.2024.2433522 . ISSN 0951-5089 . Retrieved 26 April 2025 .
^ a b c Tagliazucchi E (2022). "Language as a Window Into the Altered State of Consciousness Elicited by Psychedelic Drugs" . Front Pharmacol . 13 : 812227. doi :10.3389/fphar.2022.812227 . PMC 8980225 . PMID 35392561 .
^ Bogenschutz MP (2000). "Drug information libraries on the Internet". J Psychoactive Drugs . 32 (3): 249– 258. doi :10.1080/02791072.2000.10400447 . PMID 11061675 .
^ a b Luke, David (2022). "Anomalous Psychedelic Experiences: At the Neurochemical Juncture of the Humanistic and Parapsychological" . Journal of Humanistic Psychology . 62 (2): 257– 297. doi :10.1177/0022167820917767 . ISSN 0022-1678 .
^ Mosurinjohn S, Roseman L, Girn M (2023). "Psychedelic-induced mystical experiences: An interdisciplinary discussion and critique" . Front Psychiatry . 14 : 1077311. doi :10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1077311 . PMC 10171200 . PMID 37181886 .
^ Olive, M. Foster (2008). "History of LSD" . LSD . Infobase Publishing. pp. 21– 33. ISBN 978-0-7910-9709-0 . Retrieved 26 April 2025 .
^ Albert Hofmann (15 August 1994). "History of the Discovery of LSD" . In Ladewig, D.; Pletscher, A. (eds.). Fifty Years of LSD: Current Status and Perspectives of Hallucinogens . CRC Press. ISBN 978-1-85070-569-7 . Retrieved 26 April 2025 .
^ Hofmann, Albert (2013) [1980]. LSD: My Problem Child . OUP Oxford. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-19-963941-0 .
^ Alexander T. Shulgin ; Ann Shulgin (1991). PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story (1st ed.). Berkeley, CA: Transform Press . ISBN 978-0-9630096-0-9 . OCLC 25627628 .
^ Alexander T. Shulgin ; Ann Shulgin (1997). TiHKAL: The Continuation (1st ed.). Berkeley, CA: Transform Press . ISBN 978-0-9630096-9-2 . OCLC 38503252 .
^ Walker, Scott R.; Pullella, Glenn A.; Piggott, Matthew J.; Duggan, Peter J. (5 July 2023). "Introduction to the chemistry and pharmacology of psychedelic drugs" . Australian Journal of Chemistry . 76 (5): 236– 257. doi :10.1071/CH23050 . ISSN 0004-9425 . Retrieved 26 April 2025 .
^ Sumnall HR, Evans-Brown M, McVeigh J (2011). "Social, policy, and public health perspectives on new psychoactive substances". Drug Test Anal . 3 (7– 8): 515– 523. doi :10.1002/dta.310 . PMID 21744515 .
^ Ballentine G, Friedman SF, Bzdok D (March 2022). "Trips and neurotransmitters: Discovering principled patterns across 6850 hallucinogenic experiences" . Sci Adv . 8 (11): eabl6989. Bibcode :2022SciA....8L6989B . doi :10.1126/sciadv.abl6989 . PMC 8926331 . PMID 35294242 .
^ a b Meissen, Andrew (20 September 2024). "Mindstate Uses AI to Design "Next-Gen" Psychedelics Combined With 5-MeO-MiPT" . Lucid News - Psychedelics, Consciousness Technology, and the Future of Wellness . Retrieved 10 November 2024 .
^ Bayer, Max (13 March 2024). "After crunching 70k 'trip reports', Mindstate looks to test first AI-derived psychedelic on humans" . Fierce Biotech . Retrieved 10 November 2024 .
^ Microdose NewsDesk (10 September 2024). "Mindstate Design Labs AI-Designed Trial Gets FDA Approval" . Microdose . Retrieved 10 November 2024 .